1. Accueil
  2. EN
  3. Studying at ULB
  4. Find your course
  5. UE
POLI-D102

Histoire de la pensée politique I

academic year
2023-2024

Course teacher(s)

Jean-Yves PRANCHERE (Coordinator)

ECTS credits

5

Language(s) of instruction

french

Course content

Methodological principles of the history of political thought: concepts and problems. Historical background: ancient democracy and ancient jusnaturalism (Plato, Aristotle); medieval idea of "divine right"; modern idea of the state, from Machiavelli and Bodin to Montesquieu; theories of the social contract, from Hobbes to Rousseau.

Objectives (and/or specific learning outcomes)

The student should be able to master the meaning of some major political concepts (political regime, democracy, sovereignty, secularisation...) captured in the history of their transformations and their theoretical elaborations and uses. He/she should be able to reconstruct the main theses of the major doctrines studied in class.

Teaching methods and learning activities

Lectures accompanied by compulsory readings

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Compulsory reading (available on the UV website) :
Benjamin Constant, De la liberté des Anciens comparée à celle des Modernes.

Recommended readings :

Léo Strauss, Droit naturel et histoire.

Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libéralisme.

Course notes

  • Syllabus
  • Université virtuelle

Other information

Contacts

jypranchere@gmail.com

Campus

Solbosch

Evaluation

Method(s) of evaluation

  • Other

Other

Written examination in the form of a questionnaire.

Language(s) of evaluation

  • french

Programmes